


Rightly, wrongly, here we are

by framboise



Series: An Education [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Banter, Bittersweet, Canon Disabled Character, Complicated Relationships, Daddy Issues, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Virginity, Minor Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Older Man/Younger Woman, One Night Stands, POV Alternating, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Physical Disability, Recovery, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 14:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13503132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/framboise/pseuds/framboise
Summary: She wants something from him, does Miss Sansa Stark, sex, yes, but something more.To be hurt? He hopes not, that's not his style. To be comforted, to be praised and told that she is good? He could do that for her.To be disappointed? If so, she's come to the right man, he's good at disappointing women.To forget her tragic past? Well now, that's the very reason why his one night stands are so numerous nowadays, and if she wants that too then they might as well pool their resources.





	Rightly, wrongly, here we are

**Author's Note:**

> if you want visuals for this fic, I made a graphic [here](https://framboise-fics.tumblr.com/post/170225301687/she-wants-something-from-him-does-miss-sansa)

 

      

 

"There's a girl," Jaime says over the phone, rocking his office chair back and forth, hand flicking his lighter open and shut.

"Isn't there always," Tyrion drawls. "How old is she this time, twenty-five, twenty-two?" He fakes a shocked breath, "Nineteen?"

"Most of the women I sleep with are in their thirties, you know that."

"Yes, but you don't call those ones _girls._ "

Jaime doesn't know why he calls Tyrion for these little needling chats; except that he does know, it's because he doesn't have anyone else to call anymore, any other _siblings_.

"Do you remember the Starks?" Jaime says.

A pause on the other end of the line. "Not _Sansa_ Stark," Tyrion says. "Hasn't she been through enough without you messing her around?"

"I'm not going to mess her around. What do you take me for?"

"A heart-breaker."

Jaime scoffs and puts his lighter down, adjusting the bluetooth in his ear. That's one thing he misses about having two hands; well, one of the many things; the ability to hold a phone to your ear with one hand and fidget with the other.

"Ethically-speaking–" Jaime begins.

"Oh, here we go," Tyrion says and groans long-suffering.

"-would it be better for Miss Stark to sleep with me, rather than some other far more nefarious character?"

Tyrion laughs. "Oh, it's altruism that's your main motivator here, and not your cock, is it?"

"I just think that I would be a good choice for an ill-advised dalliance, that's all. That she could...use me to get what she wanted."

"Which is?"

"I'm not sure yet. It's complicated." He leans his head back on the seat of his chair and stares at the moulding on the ceiling. Older universities have more interesting ceilings, he's found, along with colder rooms and awkward layouts. Is his life so dull that he's made a proper study of this? Yes, yes it is. "It's like that line from that song," he says, feeling the side of his mouth quirk up, " _You look like my next mistake_."

"I hate that I recognise that reference," Tyrion bites out. "When I married my wife I did not think a forced education in third-rate pop music would be part and parcel of our union."

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this anyway," Jaime says, staring at the clock on his phone. Half one on a Tuesday morning and he's still at the university buildings, hungry, lonely, pathetic.

"Because you want me to be your guilty conscience, you want to put it all on me and then go off and be reckless."

"Ah, yes, that's why. Perceptive as ever, baby brother."

"You'll be careful with her, won't you, you can be a bit callous sometimes, and a little cruel with it."

"I'm not going to _hurt_ her. If anything does happen between us I'll make sure we're on the same page beforehand. And I refute that I'm cruel."

"Not as cruel as _she_ was perhaps."

"Tyrion," he admonishes flatly.

"Well," Tyrion says, shuffling papers on the other end of the line, "should I prepare for a lawsuit then?"

"She's not my student, she's auditing my classes."

"That old chestnut of a loophole."

"Indeed. Good night, Tyrion," he says and then hangs up before his brother can say the same.

He cracks his neck and shuffles his papers into his bag, hand pausing on the essay on the top of the pile, the one that sparked tonight's phonecall in the first place.

She wants him, does little Miss Stark. She sits at the back of his lectures, dutifully writing down every word he says and glancing up at him consideringly, biting on her pen almost, but not quite, absentmindedly. She lingers when she leaves his lectures and seminars, bends deeply to shove her books in her bag as if the very sight of her pert derriere in the girly dresses and skirts and tight skinny jeans she wears might be enough to incite him to ravish her. Perhaps it is; she is after all, very pretty: long legs, nice tits, peachy skin, gorgeous red hair.

She's also sad, haunted, and one of those girls that suits it, whose sadness only makes her more beautiful. He worries for her, above any other prurient interest he might have, he is _concerned_ about her – he does have a heart, after all, lurking somewhere underneath his black soul. Because she's too good, too pure, to go and waste herself on the kind of man that would misuse her bruised prettiness. She's looking for something from him, looking for sex, yes, but something more. To be hurt? He hopes not, that's not his style. To be comforted, to be praised and told that she is good? He could do that for her. To be disappointed? If so, she's come to the right man, he's good at disappointing women. To forget her tragic past? Well now, that's the very reason why his one night stands are so numerous nowadays, and if she wants that too then they might as well pool their resources.

 

*

 

Being a virgin was a matter of pride for Sansa at seventeen, at eighteen, at nineteen, even at twenty, but now it's become a burden, a label she doesn't want anymore, something that marks her out as different, pitiful. And if there's anything she hates more than anything, it's _pity_. But that's the emotion she seems to engender in most people, especially when they find out who she is - the last but one remaining member of an old northern house, an orphan, a trust fund girl with no more trust fund; the girl who returned home from school one day to find her house gutted, her family gone, with only a half-brother away in the Night's Watch to come and help her sort out all her parents affairs and pay the debts that unscrupulous money men had persuaded her too-trusting father to take on, to organise a funeral under the watchful eye of all the jackals who circled looking for weaknesses, wanting her to be a pushover so that they could steal the last of the money she and Jon had.

They see Jon as someone lesser too, the son of her father's mistress, a boy who chose to join the Night's Watch rather than being forced to serve like everyone else there, but she knows that Jon is far better than any of them, far better than her. He is good, and kind, and honourable, pure of heart in a way she has never been.

People tell her that she's good, but it's with a sneer, _a goody two-shoes, a good girl_. I'm just as rotten as any of you, she wants to say, but she doesn't like sharing anything real of herself with anyone anymore, she doesn't like being vulnerable.

Who should a girl like her lose her virginity to? A long-term boyfriend, a sweet young man good enough to bring home to her mother (If she still had one)? A friend who she is comfortable with? (and where would she get one of those?) A bad boy, a foreign student who wouldn't know who her family was, someone dumb and very good at sports, a fellow nerd, an escort?

She made a list of prospective partners the other week, looking at the names with a weary sense of irony. No, there's only one real option she has, one option she _wants_. She's going to lean in to her daddy issues, to that urge to do something just a tiny bit wrong and self-destructive; she's going to go with the experienced choice and with someone who has no problem using and discarding women, and doing it very charmingly, with glowing references as to his performance in bed, if not out of bed; and have Professor Lannister be the one to _usher her into womanhood_.

Professor Lannister, or Jaime, as he tells the students to call him sometimes, is handsome and he knows it. He has blond hair peppered with grey, a short beard, a strong jaw, and laughing green eyes. He has a drawling voice, a quick wit, and a world-weariness as if nothing can surprise or shock him. She's done her research: he doesn't sleep with his students while he's teaching them, though he might do after they've finished his class, he keeps everything aboveboard. He has a preference for grad students, for girlfriends of other professors, for visiting lecturers, but he has slept with a handful of girls Sansa's age, of undergraduates. It makes it more of a challenge that he doesn't regularly prey on _fresh meat_ , and Sansa has always liked a challenge.

He's also haunted, is Jaime Lannister, but no one knows for sure why. An ex-wife some say; the accident that made him lose his hand, others believe; some tragic past at least.

Perhaps that's a secret reason why she's chosen him, one she doesn't want to admit to even herself. That he might know what it's like to walk through the world bruised, and damaged. To face the world with a weary bitterness that so effectively masks the grief underneath that even he can be surprised when he cries suddenly; when a word overheard, a flash of colour, a sudden swooping mood, has him weeping and feeling so very alone.

 

*

 

Sansa has chosen a department drinks mixer to make her move apparently, which is pretty bold of her.

She's been looking at him since he arrived, unashamedly, invitingly. She's wearing a burgundy dress with knee-high leather boots, her hair loose over one shoulder. Sansa isn't technically a Classics student, but she's been auditing classes over the past year because she wants to apply for a PhD in comparative literature. She's popular with every lecturer she's ever had because she's conscientious but not a suck-up, she is genuinely interested in everything you teach her.

Jaime doesn't find these events tedious like many of his colleagues, it's the socialising, the hobnobbing, that he prefers to the actual work really. He only chose Classics because it was the easiest subject to get into at university. That, and he had somehow got his hand on a copy of Plato's Symposium and read the part about soulmates split into two, which had naturally struck a chord. That he was good enough at it to get his PhD and then become a professor was a surprise to everyone, including himself. He still struggles with his dyslexia but there's something about the rules of Latin and Greek that he finds appealing, and he's drawn to the cultures too, to a different moral landscape.

"Professor Lannister," Sansa says, interrupting his musing.

"Miss Stark," he says, "how are you this fine evening?"

She smiles. "I'm very well, professor, and yourself?"

"Please, call me Jaime," he says, trying not to think of the way Tyrion does an impression of him saying this very line.

"Only if you'll call me Sansa," she says.

"Of course, Sansa," he says and sees the tiniest flutter of her eyelashes at his use of her name. She's manouevred them a little away from the rest of the crowd, towards the windows that look out onto the darkened courtyard.

"Now, please don't be offended but I have to ask, are you here as a spy for the English department?"

She smiles. "And if I was?"

He clucks his tongue, and refrains from using words like 'naughty' and 'punishment', because there's no need to make things sleazy.

"How are you finding Virgil?" he asks.

"I'm enjoying the Aeneid, even if the political propaganda gets grating. I'm thinking of writing my next essay on Dido."

"Always a worthy subject."

She looks away from him for a moment. "I'm enjoying the tragedy inherent in many of the texts we study, I find it cathartic, you know?" she says.

He nods. "The stories are larger than life, purer, I think sometimes. There's a reason so many myths were, and are, chosen as cornerstones of modern psychological theory."

"Exactly," she says, with a pleased smile.

Their conversation continues, with slightly lighter fare and more veiled flirtation, and as the wine flows, she makes her advances, touching his arm, biting her lip, clutching his side for balance when someone squeezes past. He wants to tell her that she needn't bother, that she had him hooked the moment she sat in his seminar looking beautiful and then making a comment that managed to deftly question his own scholarship while appearing on the surface to be a barefaced compliment.

He returns her gestures; he touches her on the arm, shifts her by the shoulder out of the way of someone else that tries to get past them in the packed room, and presses his palm to her lower back before he goes to get her more wine.

But something about the way she reacts to him, some minute tell that he couldn't even explain properly, has him recalibrating a few things in his mind, because if he's not mistaken, then Miss Stark is in fact a virgin.

How terrible is he, how _reprehensible_ , to say yes to her scheme anyway, but it's ladies choice and if she's chosen him then he'll not stand in her way. It does add more of a weight to proceedings though, make him rearrange his plans slightly. Not that he would have treated her drastically differently if he had been a name on a long list, it's just that he wants to do this right, he doesn't want to add to her history of hurt.

Can he say to himself that it's an honour to be the one she's chosen, or is that terrible and creepy? Probably. He's even more glad now that she's set her sights on him, compared to the other pool of available options - horrible undergrads with tastes entirely formed by porn, boys who wouldn't know where the clitoris was if it tasted of cheap beer, middle-aged professors with the guts and nasal hair to show for it. Really, he thinks to himself, it speaks to her good taste that she's chosen him.

The evening is winding down, and Sansa is looking around and checking her watch, not because she wants to leave but because she feels her time with him is running out. He'll make things easy for her.

"Would you like to have dinner sometime, Sansa?" he says.

"Dinner, yes, that would be lovely," she says, looking up at him, perky and pleased.

She's gorgeous, is Sansa, clever, with a surprisingly dark sense of humour once she gets going, and being the recipient of her undivided attention this evening has made him even more eager for what's to come.

"Lovely," he says, and smiles.

He waves her goodbye and heads to his own car. He's helping himself to a cigarette when his email pings in his pocket and he sighs.

He knows who it's from even though she hasn't emailed him for months. The woman whose life he saved, who was there when the car crushed his hand, is persistent, and strange. She came to visit him in the hospital after the accident and he will forever blame the morphine for how he broke down in front of her, wept on her, and told her every dark little secret he had done so well at keeping inside up until that moment. He doesn't want to meet her again, to see her pity him, and he doesn't want to be thanked either. Not that he'd necessarily do it again, step in front of a car to push her out of the way and lose his hand in the process, except that he would, and it rankles with him, he who has always categorised himself as selfish above all else.

But he's not going to think about that now, about all that mess in the capital, and all the mess that came before, he's going to think about Sansa Stark, about dinner, and après-dinner, about how he can do this one thing right, and have them both a good night.

 

*

 

"I'm going to do something reckless tonight," Sansa says to Jon on speakerphone, as she applies blusher carefully to the apples of her cheeks.

"What, like choosing the Neapolitan ice cream instead of the plain vanilla?" Jon asks, mocking her softly.

She sets down the blusher brush and stares at her reflection. "I'm going to have sex with one of my professors."

Jon blows out a laugh and then pauses. "You're serious. _Sansa._ "

"I've been auditing his class, it's not against the university regulations."

"What's his name?"

"Jaime."

"His _last_ ," Jon presses.

"Lannister."

"Hmm," Jon says and she can hear the sound of him frantically typing away on his battered laptop. "Very handsome. And old," he says, having found a picture.

"Old? He's like the youngest professor here."

"Is he sleazy? He has to be to sleep with his students. He's not blackmailing you or anything?" he asks. Sometimes she chafes at Jon's protectiveness but right now she doesn't particularly mind.

"No, I was the one who chased him."

"Oh, really," Jon says, laughing sarcastically. "I've heard that one before."

"Hey!" she says, "I'm going in with my eyes open, alright. I've done my research, I know what kind of man he is, this isn't a romance."

"OK," Jon says, "OK." He breathes into the phone. "Thank you for telling me, Sansa," he says sincerely. "You know you can tell me anything. Make sure you use protection and if he does anything, and I mean _anything_ , tell me and I'll sic the Night's Watch on him."

"Will do."

He pauses again. "I hope you find someone eventually though, Sansa, someone worth it. Someone you could be happy with."

"So do I."

Silence on both ends of the line as she picks up another brush and tilts her head from side to side looking for the right planes of her face to highlight.

"You're not calling up for advice on what to wear as well are you?" Jon asks. "Because that is definitely beyond my remit."

"No, I've got that covered."

"All right, well...have fun, be safe," he says.

 _Alright, Dad_ , she might say if they were other people, if that one word wouldn't upset them both too much.

"You too," she says and he laughs and she ends the call with a small smile on her face.

She feels better for having talked to him; like this is less of a seedy, secretive thing; like she has admitted that this is a bad idea but she's going to do it anyway.

 

Jaime is there at the restaurant when she arrives. She's always found punctuality to be an attractive quality, not that he needs more going for him. The thing she likes best about him, she decides, as he kisses her on the cheek in greeting, is that he's so much taller than her, a rare thing for a tall girl like her. He's courteous to her too as befitting someone older, more experienced – he holds out her chair for her, has her sit with the good view of the old town lit up by spotlights, chooses them a good wine and later refuses to allow her to pay for half her meal.

She's feeling even better about her choice as they walk back to his flat "for a drink"; his arm around her; his warm, broad body bumping into hers.

When they get there, he unlocks the door and ushers her inside.

"Firstly, the parameters of this evening. Not very sexy I'm afraid," he says, leaning closer conspiratorially, as he shuts the door behind them, "but I've found that it's important to set the scene beforehand, as it were. So, I imagine you might be aware of my reputation, but this will be a one night only deal, is that alright with you?"

She nods.

"And you'd like to have sex tonight? You can change your mind at any time, either of us can, no hard feelings. I'm quite practiced at finishing myself off with my hand." He waves it and she snorts. "We can work out the particulars later but I just wanted to ask one thing now. Am I right in thinking you haven't done this before?"

"No—yes—I'm a virgin," she gets out. "Will that be a problem?"

"No," he says. No qualifiers, no, _are you sure_ , he's confident she wants him and it makes her confident in turn.

"You can leave your bag on that hook, and your coat next to it," he says, nodding his head.

Then she follows him into the open plan living room/bedroom.

"Wine?" he asks, an open bottle and two glasses already waiting there on the sideboard.

He's so practised at all of this, so smooth, but it doesn't feel sordid, it doesn't feel like she's just an anonymous body either.

"What are you thinking?" he asks and she realises she's staring at him.

"I was wondering if you always do this the same, if it's the same steps each time, if you've choreographed it down to an art. Sorry, I don't mean that to sound judgemental, I'm just curious."

"There are some things that are the same, mostly the preamble before we get our clothes off, but the real fun is what happens after, when things aren't planned," he says, coming closer with his voice low.

"And do they always leave satisfied?" she asks, catching his mood.

He leans to murmur in her ear, his beard brushing against her cheek, "I do my very best, Miss Stark," he says, and she shivers.

"Here," he says, handing her a glass of wine before returning to get his own.

"No smooth jazz?" she questions, "you're not fobbing me off with half the experience, are you?"

He laughs at that and tugs a lock of her hair. "You'll get the full package, I promise, orgasms and all."

She puts her glass back down on the sideboard, and reaches out to hold onto the lapels of his smart brown jacket.

"You like the jacket?" he asks, crowding her towards the bare wall behind her.

"I do, it suits you better than tweed."

"I agree," he murmurs and bends to kiss her.

He tastes of tobacco and wine, and brings his hand up to palm the back of her head, to guide her movements just the way she likes. His beard rubs at her chin, his body presses into hers. She drapes her arms around his neck and rolls her hips, making him groan, and push her harder into the wall. He's hard in his jeans and she widens her legs so that he can fit between, finds herself making noises into his mouth as he laves her tongue filthily. He moves his kisses to her neck and sucks gently, and then forcefully, underneath her jaw, as she tips her head back and tries to get her breath back. This is hotter than any of her fumbles with boys her own age and she feels wet and trembling already.

"Can you take this off?" he asks, voice buzzing against her skin, plucking at a button of her shirt. It would be too fiddly for him to unbutton himself, she realises.

"Yes," she says, with bruised lips, and he moves back to watch her peel it off her shoulders.

He tugs off his own jacket and then pulls his t-shirt over his head. She stares at the muscles of his chest; the smattering of hair; the golden colour of his skin, as if he's found his own winter source of sun. "You're fit," she says.

"Oh, this old thing," he says, motioning to his body with a faux-bashful smile. "C'mere," he says, and tugs her by the waistband of her jeans towards him.

She puts her arms back around his neck, feels the warmth of his body against hers and he kisses her, bites at her bottom lip as she scratches her nails through his hair.

Then he moves back and sits down on the end of the bed to pull off his jeans, and starts to unfasten his prosthetic hand.

"I'm going to take this off for this, I've found it only gets in the way," he says. "You can touch it if you want, it's just an arm missing a hand, you won't hurt me if you bash it accidentally or anything."

"That's good to know," she says, and takes the opportunity to bend over and tug her shoes off and then her socks, scrunching her toes into the soft carpet. She unzips her jeans, biting her lip as he watches her hotly. Taking off skinny jeans is never elegant but she doesn't feel silly as he smiles at her.

She's left standing there in her bra and knickers, pink tonight because she wanted to feel girly.

"Pretty," he says.

"Thank you," she says, swaying side to side on the spot to show them off.

He's hard in his boxers as she kneels down in front of him to put her somewhat-limited skills into use, feeling her hands shake with nerves.

 

*

 

She's knelt at his feet, looking gorgeous and flushed, but this is the part he hates, dissuading girls to get on their knees for him.

"I'd rather you didn't do that," he says, shaking his head, and tugging at her shoulder.

"I don't mind," she says, dragging his boxers down determinedly.

"Don't do that," he repeats, more firmly, pulling her up to stand.

"I wanted to. Don't treat me like a child," she says crossly, her body language suddenly tense, the mood pricked by her shame.

"I'm not," he says, pulling his boxers back up. "It's just not my thing anymore." Blow jobs were Cersei's thing, her go to method of solving arguments, and thus a sex act forever tainted to him.

"What, you've evolved beyond blow jobs?" she asks, a little meanly.

" _Hey,_ " he says, standing up too, moving her face to look at him. "Consent is mutual, alright? If _you_ don't like something, if _I_ don't like something-"

"I know, sorry," she looks away and bites her lip. "Sorry, I'm all edgy."

"I can tell," he says wryly, moving back to lie on the bed.

"I'm worried I'm going to embarrass myself," she admits, clambering up to lie on her back beside him.

"You won't," he says, patting her on the shoulder, "men are the ones who look awkward during sex."

They stare motionless at the ceiling for a moment.

"We need to find the mood again," he says, his cock half-soft now.

"I agree."

"So," he says, turning over to lie on his side, fixing her with gleeful eyes, "tell me one of your fantasies."

"Nope," she says, shaking her head on the bed so that her hair makes a static sound. "You go first," she says. She is smiling again now.

He reaches out his hand to pluck at the little bow at the base of her bra. "This really is very pretty," he murmurs, and then walks his fingers along the softness of her full breast. "Fantasies," he says, "hmm," he strokes her hair back from her face as she stares at him.

The first time he slept with someone who wasn't Cersei, he worried he would think of her every moment of it, and had in fact gone into the whole thing purely out of some masochistic desire that he _would_ , but thankfully, blissfully, he's able to lose himself in every one night stand, to focus on the woman in his bed, not the one who haunts his dreams. Not all of his fantasies include his sister either, and for that he's very glad.

"How about," he says, "I've just met a gorgeous redhead–"

She rolls her eyes fondly.

"–she's already married," he continues, touching his finger to her empty ring-finger, "but her husband doesn't see that she's regularly satisfied, he ignores her." He leans closer, runs the knuckles of his hand down her side and along her hipbone, which makes her shiver. "So I, being a charitable sort of fellow–"

She smiles wider at that, and turns over to face him. He presses his body against hers as he stretches behind her to unclip her bra with one motion.

"Impressive," she murmurs.

"Thank you," he says with a wink.

"You were saying," she says, reaching a hand down to palm his cock through his boxers.

He closes his eyes and groans, then turns her on her back again, staring down at her wonderful tits before diving in with his mouth and fingers and thumb; pinching one nipple, and sucking on the other.

"Well, I offer to give her a good seeing-to, don't I."

"Kind of you," she gasps, as she guides him to her other nipple, and lifts her knees up either side of his torso.

He tugs himself from her grip and kisses down her body, licking into her bellybutton before she pushes him away with a squeal, and then continuing onwards.

"This alright?" he asks, running a finger along the waistband of her pretty pink knickers.

"Uh-huh," she says, nodding and grabbing a pillow to prop up her head and watch him.

She helps him pull them off and then lies back, trembling slightly in a way that makes him so hard he has to tug himself a couple of times before he lies down and parts her legs with his shoulders.

"I didn't know what you preferred so I just left it in my usual style," she says, referring to her pubic hair apparently.

"Good, it doesn't matter what any man prefers. It matters what you prefer," he says, brushing his fingertips through the short curls, watching as her stomach trembles.

"You don't need to have everything be a teaching moment, you know," she says, voice a little breathy, "you're not ushering me into womanhood or something. It's not an initiation."

"Hmm, there is a decidedly Greek flavour to this scene, isn't there," he muses, and she hits him gently as he smiles and sets his mouth to her cunt. He feels her jerk under him and he hums into her, noses her clit and licks languidly.

 _Oh my god_ , she whispers as he works, and the awe in it feeds the flames of his arrogance and has him determined to ruin her for other men. He sucks, he laves, he swirls his tongue, and gets his fingers in on the action too and soon enough she's trapped him between her thighs and is wriggling around on the bed and then coming with a whine.

He wipes his face on her thigh, rubbing it back and forth again when she squirms at the feeling of his beard, and then props himself up with his elbow.

"Good?" he asks.

"Eh," she says, sawing her hand from side to side, and making him laugh out loud.

 

*

 

"Do you want to continue?" he asks.

"Yes please," she nods, her body shivering with aftershocks.

"I was thinking of you on top, does that sound to your liking? then you can control your descent, as it were."

"Sounds good."

He sits at the foot of the bed, tears a condom and puts it on, and then pats his thigh. "Now, hop up on my lap, Miss Stark," he says.

She cocks an eyebrow.

"No? Teacher-student roleplay doesn't do it for you?" he asks.

"No," she shakes her head.

"Good," he says. "When you've only got one hand, spanking can be a bit tiring."

She laughs then, head tipping back. This feels so intimate with him, like it's the two of them against the ridiculous world outside and she loves it. He's as warm and attentive as he was earlier, and she knows she's made the right choice.

She sits down on his lap and spreads her legs around his hips. He's tall enough that they're face to face which she likes. She rubs her cunt against him just to watch his eyelashes flutter, and then looks down to awkwardly nudge him into place with her hand.

He's holding the back of her neck as she sinks down and then he moves his hand to her hip, squeezing it firmly.

"There you go, good girl," he murmurs, as she bottoms out.

 _Fuck_ , she mouths towards the ceiling. It's like he's reached right inside of her and plucked a hidden chord.

"OK?" he asks.

"Good," she whispers.

"Good." He squeezes her hip again.

She starts to ride him slowly, falteringly, and then finds a rhythm that she likes that makes him grunt too and thrust up to meet her.

"Just like that, good girl," he says again.

"If you keep calling me that, I'm going to come," she groans, rubbing her clit against him.

"That's the general aim," he says, breathing a laugh.

This is so overwhelming – the feeling of him inside of her, the scratch of his chest hair against her tits, him mouthing her neck, his hand roaming her back and clutching her hip, his hips between her thighs.

She can feel her face scrunch up as she gets hotter and hotter, as her thighs tighten, and she hides it in his shoulder, reaching down with her hand to rub her clit, to get her the last bit there, and then she comes, squeezing around him, and then he comes too, moments after her.

Her hips stutter as she comes down slowly, and she rubs her forehead back and forth across his shoulder, gasping for breath. She's crying, she realises, and tries to hide it.

"Hey now," he murmurs, rubbing her back. "Are you alright?"

She nods and he pulls back to check her face as she tries to rub away her tears, embarrassed and ashamed.

"Shh, it's alright, darling," he says, and she reaches her arms around his neck again, lets herself shake and cuddle into him.  "Let's move onto the bed properly," he says, sinking back, and shifting her to lie on top of him, as he takes the condom off and drops it by the side of the bed.

He strokes his hand through her hair as her breath returns to normal. "I cried the first time after I had sex too," he says.

"You did?" she says, propping her chin on his chest and staring up at him looking at the ceiling ruefully. "What did the girl you were with do?"

"She laughed at me and told me to man up."

"That's awful," she says, pushing up onto her elbows.

"She _was_ awful," he says.

"I hope you found someone nicer for your second go around."

"Oh no," he says, shaking his head, "I was with her for decades after that. Don't let the PhD confuse you, I'm afraid I've always been a slow learner."

She tries to calculate his age, running her fingers down the hard planes of his chest. "Well, she obviously didn't deserve you, if she was cruel like that. I think you're better off without her."

"I think so too," he says but she can sense a deep well of bitterness beneath his words. She's wise enough not to venture into it though, not to prod him, she knows about private griefs that are best left unspoken.

"Do you mind if I have a cigarette now? Bad habit," he says.

"Sure."

He gets up from the bed and walks across to his jacket, unashamed in his nakedness as she watches lasciviously.

"You want one?" he asks, holding up the pack.

She shakes her head.

"Good, I don't want to corrupt you completely."

She curls her body over on one side and leans up on her elbow. "What _do_ you have to say for yourself for debauching an innocent like me, Professor Lannister?"

"Ouch," he says around his cigarette. "I thought you weren't into teacher-student roleplay," he teases, crawling up on the bed next to her.

"I am decidedly _not._ "

"I know," he says with a smile, and then blows smoke towards the ceiling. "I can just see your unimpressed face, questioning my praxis as I tried to get you to bend over my desk. Now, _other_ roleplays, I think you might be open to them though."

"Perhaps," she says, rearranging her hair over her shoulder. "But since this is a one night thing, you'll never find out."

"You wound me," he says, clutching his chest with his hand.

"This was good, us, tonight," she says, after a pause, and rests her head on his shoulder.

"I'm glad."

"Was it good for you too?" she asks, a little hesitantly.

"It was, sweet thing," he says, brushing his knuckles down her cheek, disarming her with sudden sincerity. "You're a sweet girl, Sansa, did you know that?"

She turns her lip up.

"You _are_. I know you're many other things as well, all wounded and prickly inside, but you're sweet too. Now, feel free to give me a charmingly disarming complement in return."

"You're kind."

"Why, because I was nice to you tonight? How do you know it's not just an act?"

"Because."

" _Because_ _._ Youths," he says and sighs long-sufferingly. "The state of rhetoric these days."

 

*

 

He likes the hour or so after sex, likes lying on a bed smoking a cigarette with a warm woman lying against him, the lazy banter and good endorphins. He likes it when he can share small truths about himself too, have a moment of real connection, but that only happens very rarely like it is now.

This is the point when someone else – someone less self-aware than he is, having gone through the hard years of learning exactly who he is and what he can really offer anyone – would ask her to stay for more than one night, would make plans for more dates, for a relationship. But he's no good for the likes of her, or as a boyfriend, he's got too much of his own shit to deal with, and a tendency to lash out when he feels vulnerable which isn't fair on anyone. He's as satisfied as he can be with these one night stands, with sharing something uncomplicated and pure because of it, with parameters that both participants understand. Sansa needs someone to lift her up, not drag her down in the dark with him, and besides, he's old enough to be her father, and he doesn't want to _be_ a father either, to have children like he guesses she will one day. Even if she doesn't want children, he wouldn't like the thought of her having to nurse him in his dotage while she's still in her prime. No, one glorious night will have to do, he thinks, as he drifts to sleep holding her.

 

He wakes up the next morning to a face full of silken red hair and a girl wriggling her ass back against him.

"Morning," he mutters and bends to kiss her neck, clutching his arms around her more tightly.

"Is morning sex included in the one night package?" she asks, turning onto her back, and waggling her eyebrows. She has a pillow crease bisecting her left cheek and her lips are plump from deep sleep and yesterday's kissing.

"Oh go on then," he says sarcastically.

"I want you on top this time, is that OK?" she says.

"That's fine, Miss Bossy," he says, shifting them around.

He reaches down and finds her soaking wet and he hisses, fitting two fingers inside of her and thrusting them a few times to make her squirm.

He gets up to find a condom and she waits for him on the bed, legs spread, watching him and touching herself unabashedly. If he was the pervert some people believe he is, he'd take a photo of her like this and put it pride and centre in his hardcopy wank bank.

"It's good that you're only sharing my bed for one night, Sansa," he says as he crawls up over her, "I think you'd tire an old man out if we were together any longer."

"Get to it then," she goads, lifting her chin.

"I've created a monster," he groans, and then catches her mouth in a kiss, setting his cock at her cunt and sinking in slowly, luxuriously. _"Fuck_ , you feel good," he murmurs and she whimpers and lifts her hips up to meet his, wraps her legs around him.

He fucks her until their bodies are almost stuck together with sweat, until she's come twice and is whining with oversensitivity, her cunt pulsing with every judicious application of _good girl_ , and only then does he let himself come, and it feels like it's been wrenched out of him.

 _God, sex is good_ , he thinks as he lies beside her, skin chilling in the air, running his hand up and down his chest in lazy satisfaction, while she stretches her limbs out one by one, like she's cooling down from a workout.

"I'm going to have a quick shower and then get started on breakfast," he says, getting up with a groan, "otherwise I'll show my age by falling asleep again. You can have a proper shower after me if you want, I know how shitty the water pressure is in student digs."

"Sounds good," she slurs and he pauses at the door to his bathroom, looking back to see her watching him, blinking like a satisfied cat.

 _A job well done_ , he thinks, as he looks in the bathroom mirror, and barely restrains from doing a finger-gun at his own reflection.

 

*

 

"A cooked breakfast? This really is the full package," she says, coming into the kitchen after her shower, wearing a shirt she pilfered from his wardrobe.

"Nice outfit," he says.

"I thought you might have a drawer of women's clothes for your visitors, but I couldn't find it," she teases.

"Why would I do that when women look so good in my own clothes?" he says, putting bread in the toaster.

"What are you cooking then?" she asks, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment before pushing off to fill a glass with water and down it thirstily.

He tells her.

"Eggs Benedict?" she repeats, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, "You'll ruin me for men my age, you know."

"It's their loss," he says, and she hits him ineffectually with the cloth she's picked up to wipe the counter.

"Can I help you with anything?" she asks.

"You can slice the avocado, and pour the orange juice, if you like."

"Orange juice as well? You've got all my required food groups in this meal, have you, Professor Lannister."

"Think of this as a teaching moment about the importance of breakfast," he declares, po-faced, and she throws her cloth at him again.

She takes a photo of the finished plate and then tucks in greedily. The noise of the outside world - joggers making their way down the pavement, buses hissing to a stop, a neighbour's radio drifting through the window Jaime opened - are bringing their night to a close and she can't help but feel a little melancholy about it.

After breakfast she helps him clear the kitchen and puts her clothes back on, lingering in the bathroom as she puts her hair up and brushes her teeth with one of the cheap toothbrushes he has in a multipack in his bathroom cabinet, and which she mocked him over before he said that she could borrow his toothbrush if she _really_ wanted to.

 _Right then,_ she mouths, staring at her reflection, _job done_ , and she smiles giddily and bites her lip, shaking her head at herself, before going to find Jaime who has now hidden away all his lovely muscles in a soft grey hoodie.

"You off then," he says, stubbing out his cigarette and putting his newspaper down - and a man who still has his newspaper delivered each morning, who cooks a full breakfast for his one night stands – how will some boy her age ever compare to this? She blinks as if she could memorise him just like this, with his beard and his crinkled eyes, his bare feet that look oddly vulnerable and the tuft of hair sticking up by his ear. If he wore glasses as well, she thinks, she might well have to be dragged out of here.

"Think so," she says, "I've got everything I came with but if you find something I've forgotten, you know where to find me," she winks.

He shakes his head fondly and stands up.

"Thank you, Jaime," she says, making sure to hold eye-contact, to not let him duck his head away. She squeezes his arms with her hands.

"C'mere," he says, and tugs her to him for a firm hug, a rock back and forth on the spot in his sun-drenched kitchen. He pats her on the back and she steps back.

"Good luck with your essays," he says slyly, crossing his arms as he leans on the wall and watches her put on her boots.

"Oh, you just had to remind me," she groans.

"As if you needed reminding. I'm sure you blocked this evening in your diary carefully, arranging it around your study sessions. You don't get marks like yours from being half-assed with your studying."

"You don't, you're right, thank you for saying that," she says, hoisting her bag on her shoulder, and he bows his head magnanimously.

"And good luck with your own marking," she says, as he opens the door for her, "I overheard some of the class talking about their essays and you've got some real corkers to read."

"Thanks for that, Sansa," he calls out sarcastically, and she laughs.

When she reaches the street, she turns back and finds the long window of his flat, and sees him there watching her. She salutes him and turns away, smiling, her feet almost skipping on the pavement. A good morning, she thinks, and a good night.

 

*

 

Jaime waves to her as she turns back and salutes him and then walks off, ponytail bouncing perkily. He stays leaning on the window, his reflection coming into focus, looking old and worn. He tips his head back and sighs with a wry smile, and then reaches for his phone. He rubs at his neck with his right wrist and opens his email, scrolling down to find the one from her, from Brienne, and opening it with a fatalistic sigh.

 _Dear Jaime_ , she writes, _I know you haven't replied to any of my last emails, but I'm not giving up on you..._

He smiles despite himself as he reads the first long paragraph, rolling his eyes at her honest sincerity, and heads to the kitchen to make himself another coffee and maybe, if he's honest, to finally type out a reply to her too, blaming Sansa for opening a little chink in his bruised heart. He'll probably probably regret it when evening comes again, but what's life without a little regret.

And if he has to do some hip flexor stretches later that afternoon, complete with old man groans, then he's telling no one; he's not as athletic as he was when he was when he was young, that's all, it's not that he pushed himself to show off for Sansa, certainly not.

 

*

 

Does the world look differently to her now she's finally _done the deed_ , is she transformed, is her heart light and free? Not exactly. But it was good, special, a little kernel of warmth that she can take with her, and remember. She knows now that she can be intimate, vulnerable, with another person, with the right man, and the world won't collapse – she might cry, it might be awkward at times, but it will be good too, and she'll come away unscathed.

Plus, now she has a memory to fuel her solo fantasies for many years to come.

Has Jaime ruined her for other men? Hopefully not, although he's just arrogant enough to think so. A thought that makes her snort with laughter on the bus home from his, which has her seatmate shifting away from her nervously.

 _Mission accomplished_ , she texts Jon, with a selfie of her holding up a V for Victory (and a V for no-longer-a-virgin too, but Jon doesn't need to know that detail).

 _Great_ , he replies a moment later, with a thumbs-up and a bemused face that makes her cackle again.

As the city glides by outside the window, she opens up Instagram to add Jaime. He was quite vocal in his opening spiel at the start of their lectures that he would only accept friend requests from students on his official Facebook, but she figures that since she's slept with him that doesn't apply to her anymore. He accepts her back almost straightaway and she scrolls through his feed idly. Disappointingly, he only has a handful of shirtless selfies on there, disguised as tasteful holiday pictures, but beggars can't be choosers she supposes.

She posts the picture of her breakfast plate, cropped so that there's nothing that might give away its providence, and captions it, _a well-earned feast_. The likes come pinging in and she gets a little thrill when Jaime likes it too a few hours later, once she's home and lazing about her room, getting out her books for the essay she needs to write this week.

There's no sign of his other one night stands on his Instagram, he's too much of a gentleman for that, so it won't be a masochistic endeavour, following him. Nothing more is going to happen between the two of them, she knows that and accepts it, but she's glad that she might stay in contact with him, banter a little over social media or email.

She finds the list she made of her prospective partners as she searches for some notes that evening, yawning at last night's exertion, and she marks a tick next to Jaime's name and then tears the list up and bins it. The urgency now gone, she thinks she'll wait until she's finished her last semester and graduated to think about dating anyone, maybe wait longer than that if she's being honest with herself. But some rounds of uncomplicated sex, she'd be up for that, it's just a case of finding the right man again. A mature man, she thinks, not quite as old as Jaime perhaps, a kind man with a nice smile and a wicked sense of humour. She lets herself daydream, in a way that she hasn't for quite some time, imagining some halcyon future that mostly consists of having someone there to cheer her on as she achieves various things - a PhD, a professorship, a celebrated book tour, a chat on some prestigious late night TV show. _Getting ahead of yourself_ , she murmurs, and shakes her head, cracking open the next library book from the teetering stack on her desk.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please comment, I'd love to know what people think! :)
> 
> I really enjoyed my first foray into writing this pairing. These particular versions of their characters were too bruised to have them end up neatly together in the space of this story, and I also wanted to honour Jaime's connection with Brienne, but hopefully the openness of the ending allows people to imagine whatever they wish to happen for them in the future.
> 
> my tumblr: [framboise-fics](http://framboise-fics.tumblr.com)
> 
> and there's a rebloggable photoset for this fic [here](https://framboise-fics.tumblr.com/post/170225301687/she-wants-something-from-him-does-miss-sansa)


End file.
